I remember when LeBron James left the Cleveland Cavaliers for the second time in 2018, some people thought Kevin Love would return back to Minnesota Timberwolves Kevin Love, where he averaged 19.2 points, 12.2 rebounds, and 2.5 assists per night over 6 seasons, and was an All-Star 3 times. Sure, that would’ve been nice, but to be honest, it was just a pipe dream.
However, even though he hasn’t been an All-Star for this Cavs roster, he has still been one of the most vital pieces to success when healthy, in that sense. His leadership, quality shooting, and solid rebounding played some into why the Cavaliers had an above .500 record last season, and those reasons led to him finishing second in voting for the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award in 2022.
Love’s game has aged like a fine wine, adapting to Cleveland’s system and changing his style to fit what the team needs. Back in the LeBron era for the Cavs, Love used to just be a shooter and rebounder. Now, he is a solid secondary playmaker as well, and should be able to help in that regard next season with him further acclimated to a shift to a bench role after last season.
Next season, Love should want to have a few goals to keep him going. Here are a couple of goals that Love could be able to accomplish and should be able to strive for in the 2022-23 campaign.
Goal #1: Playing in at least 65 games
Last season, Kevin Love played an astonishing 74 regular season games, which is a lot better from the season prior, where he only played in 25 games. Also, Love played the most total games on the whole Cavaliers roster, which is a great feat for someone with his injury history.
The saying is, the best ability is availability, and Love had a lot of availability last season, which is a very good thing. If Love could be able to play at least 65 games next season, that would be a massive success.
Let’s take a rewind to the past few seasons for Love, to show how impressive these 74 games were. Like I previously mentioned, Kevin Love played 25 games in the 2020-21 season, and 56 games in the 2019-2020 season, which is impressive, given the COVID-19-shortened season, meaning the Cavs didn’t have a full 82-game season, they only played 65 games, and then only 22 games in the 2018-19 season. The 2020-21 season was shortened also, to 72 games, as an aside.
So 2 out of the 3 years I mentioned, Love didn’t play in a considerable amount of the regular season games. However, this past season, he played in a bit over 90% of the games, which is definitely a step in the right direction. Of course, the team shifting him to a bench role played well into that, and hopefully he can maximize his impact in a similar role again in 2022-23, as he did last year.
Goal #2: Shooting well again from 3 and the FT line, hopefully with more attempts from the charity stripe
Last season, Kevin Love shot a solid 39.2% from 3, which is even more impressive when you consider the fact that he shot 6.4 attempts per game, showing that he is a high-volume efficient shooter. Also, he shot 83.8% from the free throw line, shooting 2.7 attempts per game.
This free throw percentage is very good for a big man, and is solid in general. Granted, in his role as more of a perimeter/stretch big, he’s not going to have a high volume of free throws; he still will have to take advantage when mismatches arise, though.
The lack of free throws is probably because Love mainly takes jump shots, and doesn’t really take shots often in the paint. I mean, it’s not a bad recipe for success for Love, but it would help the offense some if he can generate some more looks from the stripe. Considering Love is a bigger guy (no offense, Kevin), he should be able to bully opponents inside the paint.
In the end, anyway, I do expect Love to have a great season next season, and he should be able to be successful on and also off the court/as a leader. Good luck next season, Kevin.